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Newsstand: October 4, 2011
What's that you say, Tues a snooze if not for the news? Well, clean the gunk from yesterday's pumpkin latte out of your reusable coffee mug and fill up on some Tuesday Newsstand: an hour later, police chief and mayor still don't agree on the police budget; Mississauga mayor found to be in conflict of interest; PC party won't back down from misleading flyers; and the TCHC gets a boon from executive committee.
Mayor Rob Ford and police chief Bill Blair met behind closed doors for over an hour on Monday. Based on the dueling press conferences the pair gave after their time together, we can safely presume the two frazzled men just took the hour to get in a power nap before waking up refreshed and energized to say the same things they’ve been saying all along. Blair says the Toronto Police Services budget he produced on Friday with a request for a 1.5 per cent budget increase, which will actually amount to a 3 per cent decrease once the new collective agreement kicks in, is the best the City can hope for without too dramatic an effect on police services. While Ford came out and said Blair is a good man and he’s confident the chief will somehow find that 10 per cent budget cut required from the police and every other department. Or to put it in the immortal words of Nike: Just do it.
As for Michael Thompson’s (Ward 37, Scarborough Centre) suggestion that Blair can be replaced, Blair thinks otherwise. That’s his job.
Mighty McCallion, Mississauga mayor, has been found conflicting her interests. An inquiry into Hazel McCallion’s involvement in a development deal that would see Mississauga gain a new hotel and convention centre, and McCallion’s son, a realtor involved in the deal, gain too, says that Mayor McCallion had a “real and apparent” conflict of interest. McCallion is brushing off the findings of the two-year-long judicial inquiry and making no moves to resign. But though the inquiry may not discommode Mississauga’s seat of power, the final report does make recommendations for Mississauga (e.g. keep minutes of in-camera meetings) and municipalities across the province (e.g. creating a roster of integrity commissioners through the Association of Municipalities of Ontario).
Just two days before the election, provincial PC leader Tim Hudak is on the defensive after his party put out this flyer of cobbled together nonsense about the Toronto District School Board’s attempts to address homophobia and heterosexism. And by “on the defensive,” we don’t mean he’s apologizing for putting the Tory stamp of approval on wildly misleading campaign literature. We mean he is literally defending the flyer as a correct critique of Liberal policy. Meantime, the PC candidate for Brampton West, where the flyer was distributed, was less forthcoming with the defence and more about the run out the back door and have security guards fight off reporters method.
And the executive committee voted to enact a $10 million tax break for the Toronto Community Housing Corporation at its Monday meeting. The plan is for the housing corporation to put the money towards chipping away at its repairs backlog. Though the total cost of backlogged repairs in TCHC properties is estimated to cost somewhere around $650 million, it’s a start.